So far, yes. It's getting hardware with every release. First you had to click approve in a dialog to launch unsigned software. Later you had to right click -> "open" -> then approve. Now you have to open system settings to find the button to show the approval prompt.

Meanwhile to install a kernel extension you now have to reboot into safe mode and disable part of system integrity protection (with big warnings that it's at your own risk).

For the average user, kernel extension are already gone, and unsigned software not far behind.

Devil's advocating here... when have kernel extensions _ever been_ a part of the average user's experience?

The early MacOS era as well as pretty much the entire classic Mac OS era was infamous for being a more-or-less do it yourself environment for adding bits the OS didn't have or did sub-optimally for given use cases.

The wisdom of such a freewheeling ecosystem in today's era is maybe debatable, but given how user-hostile the mainline OS and software vendors can be, I say there's still plenty of room for that ecosystem and it should be preserved.

I guess I do remember adding drivers here and there for scanners and printers back in the day

The old OS was awesome in that way. As extensions loaded the would appear in sequence at the bottom of the screen when a driver failed the boot would lock-up and one could reboot with extensions off change the boot order or remove the driver from the system folder. Very easy to mess with.

ever since that was how you did device drivers. If you anything interesting, hardware wise, it came with drivers that required help from inside the kernel, and maybe you can argue that was different but it's still kernel level stuff that normal users had to install.

You can also just resign the binaries in one quick CLI command. That can’t go away because it’s baked into the post-compile build stages of Mac and iOS apps. So relax, this thread is all a bunch of silly FUD.

If you are a developer, with the developer tools installed, sure. That's already well out of reach of the average user.

Average user doesn’t even know what side-loading is, nor do they care.

Yeah, haha. This is not FUD: try to do the same on iOS.

Yeah I do it nearly everyday. You can side load all you want with a developer account.

>with a developer account

Thanks, you missed the point.

I said the thread is FUD because essential tooling is baked into the OS that invalidates the central thesis of the thread. Your response was, “haha ok now try that on a separate platform that requires a well known upfront premium to circumvent binary integrity protection, because consequences are much more significant, lolz”. And I responded with “yes, confirmed circumvention possible after paying small fee”.

Or were you saying something else that I misunderstood?

The point is, you do not have control over your own device and need permission - after paying a fee - to do things freely with your own device.